Floating turbines may join Norway’s offshore rigs

UTSIRA, Norway

Norway’s government is contemplating licensing “blocks” for offshore wind generation, and Norwegian oil company StatoilHydro aims to start work next year on a floating turbine project near the site of the first North Sea oil discovery 40 years ago.

“We are the best place in Norway if you love wind,” Mayor Jarle Nilsen said of Utsira, a North Sea island of just six sq. km (2.3 square miles) and home to 210 people who already get most of their power from two onshore turbines.

“We had wind every day except one last year,” he told Reuters, thrilled by the prospect of two experimental offshore wind projects anchoring in nearby waters.